The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: The morning of 4/6 of Big Hero Six's SFIT graduation, Hiro is nervous about delivering a big speech—and about his future. Baymax comforts him and after receiving their diplomas, they all share a moment remembering Tadashi and his impact on campus, and on them all.


_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Big Hero 6. Or HTTYD. (You'll see the little nod down there. ;))  
**

**So I finally saw Big Hero 6, and while knowing some key details (*coughTadashi'sdeathinaburningbuildingandlosingBaymaxlikethatcough*) beforehand probs saved me some heartbreak, I still cried. I laughed. It was beautiful. It reminded me of Wreck-It Ralph, as it wasn't an A-typical Disney-format movie, and it was bright and colorful and clever. It also reminded me of Frozen—highlighting a loving, sacrificial sibling relationship.**

**The entirety of it was amazing, and I knew that I'd make several stories about it. Hence my writing now. :)**

_The_ morning dawned. The morning of the day that'd taken two years of hard, compressed work, extensive after-hours at the Ito Ishioka Lab, and over-night study sessions with Wasabi, Honey, GoGo, Fred, and Baymax at the university library. (Of course, neither Fred or Baymax studied for brain-wracking finals exams or scholarship-earning invention contests—rather, they provided the fun and pizza, and the apathetic concern, respectively.) The morning of the day on which Aunt Cass crossed out the last calendar square with a big red marker and squeed.

It was the morning of Hiro's graduation from SFIT. Tall (like Tadashi), gangly (like himself), and tugging at a stupid black tie Aunt Cass had wrangled him into before she'd shoved them out of the house, Hiro hung onto a brass bar attached to the ceiling of one of San Fransokyo's famous cable cars. (He'd decided to not give Aunt Cass a heart attack by favoring a ride by robot instead of rails.)

In contrast with Aunt Cass, who bounced and bubbled, Hiro hid his emotions, such as his nervousness.

"Whooh," he breathed out in a long, anxious sigh.

Baymax, taking up nearly the entire width of the packed cable car, heard this utterance of imbalance and turned his head toward Hiro. "I heard a sound of unhealthy discontent," he said matter-of-factly. "On a rate from one-to-ten, how would you rate your pain?"

Baymax had become a common, welcome companion 'most anywhere Hiro went. Aunt Cass properly met him after Hiro had implanted his health chip into his new body. (She'd cried and had to be hugged and given tissues by the concerned, helping robot, after finding out Tadashi's connection with his creation.) Since then, he was practically a member of the family, from sitting at the little kitchen table and advising the two Hamadas about their poor diet to sitting in front of the TV and informing others of the emotional comfort for the senses petting a warm cat can bring to one. Not excluding his role as Hiro's ever-constant healthcare robot, he also filled the role of being his best friend, and was 'thoroughly delighted' to be attending his graduation today.

"I'm—I'm _not_ in pain," Hiro said.

"I heard sounds of distress. What is the trouble, that I may treat it."

Hiro chuckled to himself. If nothing else, Baymax was always persistent.

"I'm just nervous, Baymax."

A quick body scan revealed: "Perspiring palms, pounding heart, irregular body temperature, panted breathing, upset tummy. Diagnosis: slight anxiety attack induced by exciting event." Baymax's fingers uncurled from one of the bars and his arm wrapped around from Hiro's shoulder to his other side, squeezing him tight and squishing him. "I will give you a hug, so you know a friend is near." He let go, allowing Hiro to breathe normally, and raised an index finger, saying calmly, "Breathing exercises can control irregular breathing. Take deep breaths and exhale deeply."

Hiro, rolling his eyes good-naturedly, obeyed his robot. Baymax watched him unblinkingly as his puffed cheeks bloomed bright red before blurting out air like a deflated, defeated balloon.

"Excellent." Baymax then produced a granola bar from some food threshold hidden in one of his mysterious compartments. "This will settle the tummy."

"Thanks, Baymax," Hiro said. He ripped the wrapping off and yanking off a bite, he said around it, "I just feel really nervous about it all. It's like I've got butterflies in my stomach or something."

Baymax blinked as Hiro finished off the granola bar. "Your body scan did not indicate butterflies in your stomach. Insects in your tummy is not part of my diagnosis."

"That's one of those expression things I keep mentioning, Baymax," Hiro said.

"Oh." Baymax went distant, as if downloading the information. "I will add that to my memory files to reference at a future date."

"Sounds like a good idea, buddy," Hiro said. He turned back to face the front of the cable car, and Baymax leaned out from behind him, hoping to catch a hint of his face.

"Why are you so nervous?" Baymax inquired.

"Well, Baymax," Hiro said, turning fully 360 degrees to face his robot. He sighed, rubbed his neck, and started once more, reluctantly. "I graduated high school at the age of thirteen. Now I'm sixteen and graduating college. Yeah, I could've graduated by fifteen, but I wanted to hang out with my friends at school."

"Understandable. They are graduating as well today," Baymax said. (One of Baymax's common habits was repeating relatively well-known facts.)

"Yeah. And it's scary, to finish school and figure out what I want to do with my life. Big Hero Six is a great thing that we and our friends are doing, but Wasabi, Honey, and GoGo were offered jobs by Fred's father to head his research and development lab for inventions that'll help humanity, and Fred is already into advertising for it. I've been offered a job by him, too, but I haven't accepted it yet. I'm just wondering, Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Is it enough?"

A few seconds passed. Some cable car bells rung and Aunt Cass, a few seats off, finished eating her big stress-muffin.

"You are anxious that since you are young, you won't be like your friends," Baymax stated.

"I'm scared of the future and I don't know what to do. So yeah, Baymax. Needless to say, I like being a kid and doing what I want. I don't want to grow up," Hiro confided. Growing up in a world with no memories of Mom and Dad, and no Tadashi to guide him through getting a job, getting a girl, having a life as an adult . . . it was a daunting task Hiro didn't want to face without his brother.

Baymax reached back into the recesses of his memory to relate back moments of vulnerable Hiro to this young man in front of him; he found several connections. "You are shy and scared of the tasks ahead," Baymax said.

"Yeah. I mean, you know what wrong things I am capable of doing . . ." Hiro sighed and murmured, "What if I turn back to bot-fights? Don't use my brains to help people?"

"I think you need a different perspective," Baymax said.

This lightened Hiro, and he laughed. "Tadashi used to say that," he muttered.

"I know. Tadashi is one of the best medicines for you. He calms your nerve system, your heart rate, and your temper," Baymax said. "Emotions associated with Tadashi: brotherly affection, happiness, love." Baymax tilted his body at a weird angle to get a better look at the man-boy, and he said, "Tadashi was wise."

"Yeah. Yeah, he was," Hiro said quietly.

"I have a different perspective," Baymax said hopefully. "You are a good person. You saved lives. You provide happiness for: Cassandra Hamada; Wasabi; Honey; GoGo; Fred; the HAIRY baby; and"—Hiro looked a little tired as Baymax rambled on, but his face changed when Baymax added "me." Baymax patted Hiro's hair, mussing it up and making him smile a little, continuing: "You make the right choices. Your intelligence is significantly higher than the average male sixteen-year-old. You will do great things. You only need some confidence in yourself, not just your abilities." Baymax rubbed his hair into a crow's nest. "I learned that all on my own. My programming is limited, but I always love downloading new things. That was a new thing. Do you like the new thing?"

Hiro laughed and touched his fingers to Baymax's vinyl ones. "I like that new thing, Baymax."

"Good. Now, do not worry, Hiro. Worrying increases sleep depravity, loss of focus, lack of energy—"

"—and you really don't know when to stop rambling!" Hiro said, shoving himself away from Baymax, teasing.

"—dozing, chances for accidents, lack of interest—"

"I'm not listening!" Hiro said loudly, trying to cover Baymax's relentless, rambling voice.

"—loss of appetite, hallucinations, lack of concentration. . ."

* * *

The graduation ceremony went well. Led by Abigail Callaghan, a highly-respected scientist noted for her discoveries and theories about the portal she'd gone through, the opening speech met a roaring crowd. Aunt Cass jumped up and down in the front row like a fan girl at her favorite boy band's concert. Then Abigail introduced Hiro, the pride of the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. Boy-genius, prodigy, (not to mention the outed saver of Abigail Callaghan's life), eyes from all over the country had caught on to him after his replication of Baymax and invention of the Microbots came to national light. Among the graduates' families were several speculative employers, all who'd spent the past week popping into the Lucky Cat Café and exciting Aunt Cass, as they offered countless high-paying, sustainable jobs for Hiro as an inventor and manager of divisions in their companies. Hiro came back, late, from school to slump on the couch with Aunt Cass, eat doughnuts from the shop and cocoa, and try to ignore the written offers piling on the kitchen table.

Hiro, significantly lower in age and self-esteem than many of those other graduates cheering him on from the bleachers, made the microphone screech, like it had during his moment of truth at the SFIT exhibition. Then he saw Fred roaring cheers from next to Aunt Cass, and remembered Baymax's breathing exercises, and Tadashi's confidence in him, and won the crowd over with his honesty and sassy showmanship. By the end, he had everyone on their feet, and he bowed ceremoniously before chancing a glance at his three fellow graduates. Wasabi waved his fist around in excitement; Honey bounced on her high-heeled feet and smashed her hands together repeatedly, as hoppedy as a kid hyped on sugar; and GoGo blew a large pink bubble before giving him a quiet thumbs-up.

The dean of the institute called out each graduate and gifted them their diploma with a shake of the hand. Honey, wearing pink glasses and little molecular pyramidal shaped earrings, bounced across the stage, still bright as a fluorescent light in her black, silky graduation gown. Skipping away, Wasabi followed her. He intricately sanitized his hand with a wipe, to the dean's confusion, before accepting the diploma and handshake. Next: GoGo hurried across the stage, bobbled her head as if to say 'Hurry up' to the dean, and disappeared to hide under the wing of her friends to the far left stage following the crowd's clapping.

Finally, Hiro walked across the stage. Smiled at Aunt Cass's capturing camera. Waved to Baymax, who, despite having but one facial expression, looked proud of his friend. Accepted the diploma, for which he labored under extreme duress night and day for. Shook the hand of the kind dean, who, almost like Callaghan, cared about the ingenuity of his students. Bowed dramatically as he walked to his friends for Honey's camera, for she filmed, like, everything now.

He being the last student, the crowd all leapt to their feet and applauded until their hands grew tired and red. The dean dispersed the crowd, and all the students excitedly ripped their graduation caps off their heads and threw them into the air.

Their tassels flew in the wind, and the crowd of students cheered.

A mass exodus of now-freed adults flooded off the stage. However, the 4/6 of Big Hero lagged behind. They had time to wait for Fred and Aunt Cass to fight their way against the opposing current; Baymax's attempt at reaching them reminded Hiro of a squeezed marshmallow.

"I can't believe it! We did it!" Honey said, bouncing.

"And you wore black for once. It's all just miracles today," GoGo said calmly, blowing a few no-nonsense bubbles.

"I know!" Honey twisted like a ballerina on her tiptoes and fell over into Wasabi's waiting arms. "Thanks, Wasabi!" she squealed.

"No problem," Wasabi said. He was the most worried of all of Big Hero 6, and counted himself as the one to watch out for them all at any time, any place.

"And Hiro!" Honey bounced to him and squeezed the life out of his arm in a suffocating hug. "That speech was riveting! You had the entire crowd going! You did so well!"

"Ten out of ten; would recommend," GoGo said.

Needless to say, asking for a bigger compliment from GoGo was impossible.

"We're proud of you, man," Wasabi said. He fist-bumped Hiro's waiting fist, and they backed up from their close-knit group, their fingers waggling. "Ba-la-la-la," they said, imitating Baymax.

"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! THAT WAS _AMAZING_!" Fred's voice forewarned them of his imminent descent on them. Wearing a smart suit for once (tonight was a graduation party held at his prestigious father's mansion), but still with his long golden-brown hair out under his floppy green hat, Fred was half upper-class and half-weird-geeky-gross-nerd-guy. He fist-pumped, hard, in front of the group, before jumping at each one and hugging them. "I could've never, like, _ever_ gotten through that. Of course, _half_ of your credit is owed to _me_. You'd never have gotten through those long nights without me cheerleading you guys on!"

"We'd probably have gotten more sleep," GoGo commented before her face ballooned as Fred hugged her tight. "Um, Fred . . . hey!"

"Sorry," he said, withdrawing and allowing her to hack out her gum and breathe normally. "I'm just so excited! School's over, which is super sad, because who wants to be the school mascot without such great nerds to root for?"

Honey gasped dramatically, her palm against her shiny pink lips. "You're . . . quitting being the school mascot?"

"Yeah. I got a job now, thanks to my dad and I's new fantastic, blow-your-mind-with-its-cool-secrets relationship. Oh, and nepotism. Can't forget that. That probably has something to do with the fact that he dismissed seven hundred great applications in favor of mine."

Hiro, Wasabi, Honey, and GoGo all looked equally surprised.

"Really, though, was there any contest? The job was obviously going to go to me. It was my destiny," Fred said. He held out his arms high over his head, and said, "But anyway, enough about me and boring job stuff. We'll still have so much fun working together, and weekends at my place, and then Big Hero Si—"

"NOOOO!" Hiro, Wasabi, Honey, and GoGo flew at him. Their hands piled into a thick layer against his mouth as they pounced around him. GoGo's eyes squinted into little black slits. She leaned forward and whispered in _such _a non-threatening tone the words they all thought: "Part of being superheros, Fred, is NOT revealing our secret identity."

"Hhdjfghjkdfhgsjklhglkjsfdhgkjsdfg," said Fred.

"Oh, guys, I think we're suffocating him with hugs," Honey said worriedly.

"I'd hardly call this 'hugs'," Wasabi said. But they all fell back, causing Fred to breathe deeply, relieved.

"Thanks, guys. I was dying back there," he said cheerfully as Wasabi wiped down his touching-Fred's-gross-mouth hand with a hand wipe.

"Yeah, we're sorry about that," Honey apologized in a sweet voice.

"What were you trying to say?" Hiro wondered.

"I was _TRYING_ to say that of _course_ I know that. I've read, like, a billion comic books in my lifetime. It's in my blood to know. Like I've come from a long line of superheros, or something. I was just testing you guys," he teased.

"Did we pass?" GoGo asked, not amused.

"Totally," Fred said cheerfully.

"Yay! We passed!" Honey cheered.

"Just got out of school and _still_ taking tests," Wasabi sighed.

"Hey; as long as I'm around, you're _always _going to have to be on your toes," Fred said, balancing on tiptoes.

"No. As long as super villains and danger and whatever are around, we need to be on our toes," GoGo pointed out.

"Yeah. For both of us, I guess," Fred said. He wiggled his fingers and said in a faux-frightening voice, "So ALWAYS be on your guarddddd . . ."

"Will do," GoGo huffed.

Amidst Fred's welcome, silly banter, Hiro had grown quiet, as he was oft to do. On the outskirts of the group, he turned from under Wasabi's hand on his shoulders and looked over the familiar campus. Once a new adventure with exciting inventions of the imagination around every corner, it'd become his second home. The labs; the new auditorium; the balconies and bridges criss-crossing over the big, cherry-tree-dotted campus; the cafeteria with its technologically-advanced food machines; the school theater with the newest innovations of theater props and staging. He and his friends had haunted the library, slept in the R&amp;D lab, owned the floors of the classrooms, interrupted seminars, performed cross-campus pranks. The positive number of _months _he'd spent in Tadashi's old lab, with Baymax fixing every mild abrasion and handling every overwhelming panic, anxiety, or grief attack.

Tadashi's presence was felt on this campus the most. He'd built Baymax here, and Hiro on his computer (Hiro cracked his password very quickly; 'baymaxmarshmallow') discovered many files; some treasured and important, and some WIP and retrieved from the electronic trash, and important. Hiro not only found useful tidbits of insight into robotics from his brother and his time as Callaghan's top student (the painful irony never stopped being painful), but also humorous moments of his brother with Baymax and his friends. He watched caught moments of Tadashi praising his little brother to his friends before they'd all been formally introduced; so many different experiments involving Tadashi mildly harming himself in some way, whether withdrawing blood via a sterilized needle, coming to school with a 101 degree fever, or being dehydrated, to test Baymax's extensive knowledge about treatments. And each time, Baymax performed exactly the way Tadashi hoped.

This place, surprisingly extraordinary to any normal human being, glowed with marks of the Hamada brothers and Big Hero 6 all over it. And Hiro remembered all those memories and didn't want to leave this place. Not now. Not ever.

But time had come for moving on. (He knew now that moving on from a point in your life is important in getting on to the other points in your life.) Some parts of those memories would remain; if he took the job offer from Mr. L, he'd work alongside Wasabi, Honey, GoGo, and Fred all day long every day (excepting weekends and bank holidays). He'd create a new line of inventions that would benefit humanity. Like Tadashi building Baymax. For helping mankind.

Sometimes, stepping back from Baymax and himself and his friends in their high-tech gear and awesome weapons and powers, he realized that Tadashi would've made the best superhero. Selfless, sacrificial, brave, caring. Everything a superhero should be, and everything Tadashi wanted him to be.

Wasabi hugged his side hard, drawing him back to reality. "What's up, little man? What's running through your head right now?" Wasabi asked kindly.

Hiro sighed and turned back to his friends. Honey, all warm and glowing, and Fred, interested and curious. Wasabi, wondering and ready to hear, and even GoGo, bearing a listening ear.

They all looked sad and thoughtful, as if they were thinking exactly the same thoughts about the campus and Tadashi.

The two were inseparable from each other.

"I just wish Tadashi was here to see this," Hiro said.

It would've been his graduation too, you know.

"We all do," Honey said sympathetically.

"He would've been proud of you, Hiro," Wasabi told him.

"Just like we're all proud of you," Fred said proudly.

Hiro laughed a little, letting loose with this wistful little smile, all grateful and glad for such friends who understood not only him, but Tadashi, who he was and made them all to be.

"Hey, what say a group hug, huh, guys?" Honey said. Her hands scrunched together in front of her excited face before she threw her arms around and gathered her friends together. Even hard-hearted GoGo melted in the friendly embrace shared by the five of them.

"Group hug! Excellent," Baymax said. He drew up behind them and wrapped his large pillowy arms around Wasabi and Fred, drawing them all closer. "There there. Everything is all right now," he said comfortingly.

"Yeah it is, Baymax," Hiro whispered.

The next few minutes of graduation were filled with heartfelt congratulations, slaps on the back, and Aunt Cass. She laughed, hiccuped, almost passed out, wept, sobbed, cheered, leapt, bounded, fell, moaned, whispered, and kissed many cheeks. Fred and GoGo ended up each with one arm supporting her back as they led her off the campus green to squeeze into Wasabi's car. Wasabi and Honey followed up, and Baymax waddled after them with Hiro at his side. The robot raised an index finger and said, "Laying down will rest the body. On a scale from one-to-ten, how would you rate your pain . . . —Aunt—Cass?"

(Baymax had found his new patient.)

The four elders, Aunt Cass, and Baymax trundled to the car, but Hiro stopped a moment for one last glance at the campus. He'd really started using his brains here, because of this place and his brother inspiring him.

His eyes turned down to the diploma clutched in his fat hand, and despite the tears in his eyes, he smiled.

He would use his brains, his knowledge, creativity, and skills to create new inventions to better humanity. He'd be a better person, a better superhero, using his brains to help people.

Just like Tadashi wanted him to do.

***cries***

**Thanks for reading! **


End file.
